Unequivocal?

'Unequivocal improvement'
In my case, it has been unusual for an MRI report to communicate unambiguously good news. And yet these two words summed up the news from my latest scan. 

It was unexpected. I had undertaken this scan only a few weeks after the previous one. Usually, significant changes in the brain take months to materialise. The report itself sounded puzzled, declaring the findings 'difficult to explain' (I imagine October's surgery was still working its magic). The intention of the scan had been to establish a fresh monitoring baseline at the start of a new course of chemo; this time an agent called carboplatin. The MRI itself has, however, left me wondering if more chemo is what I need right now.

I love the smell of 'carbo' in the morning!
No, I am not cured. Sorry, this is pretty much unequivocal too. There are still plenty of GBM cells floating around in my brain. A few will, most likely, hook up at some point and go on another ravenous rampage. The most sensible option seems to try to knock them out with everything possible. Cue the 'carbo' (as the oncologists call it, almost affectionately).

I don't know if any more chemo poison might just knock me out. I'm not jumping straight on it. We'll continue to keep a close eye on my brain, I'll suck it up if it becomes necessary. 

Mission: impossible?
You may recall an immunotherapy approach I've mentioned over the years (aka 'the vaccine', DCVax)? After waiting a while—one year, four months and nine days but-hey-who’s-counting—I was recently granted access.

It remains experimental (ie not formally endorsed by any regulatory bodies) but is probably the approach that has had the most consistent success against GBM in the past decade, extending users' life expectancy by multiple years. Side effects? As one of my doctors wryly joked, 'just one: a hole in your wallet'.

'You cannot beat The Terminator'. The truism feels a little less unequivocal today.